[Nitebot]

The OU is already starting to move to electronic only formats for some courses. I did S155 Scientific Investigations last year. The main text, the Good Experiment Guide, was pdf & kindle only. The only printed material we received was the course guide. It was implied that the OU wants to move more that way. They already give us a pdf version of the S104 text books. I could see a day when only the pdf is offered and students would have to buy a printed copy themselves. Not sure how this will go down with new students paying at a rate of £5000 a year for their courses.

[Bleak Lemming]

(Original post by Nitebot)
The OU is already starting to move to electronic only formats for some courses. I did S155 Scientific Investigations last year. The main text, the Good Experiment Guide, was pdf & kindle only. The only printed material we received was the course guide. It was implied that the OU wants to move more that way. They already give us a pdf version of the S104 text books. I could see a day when only the pdf is offered and students would have to buy a printed copy themselves. Not sure how this will go down with new students paying at a rate of £5000 a year for their courses.

I wouldn't be pleased about this. I guess some courses are better suited to being on pdf. I find with the maths courses, there's quite a lot of flicking between pages to check answers or refer back to an equation.. Far easier on paper.. Are you saying for S104 that you only get .pdf files?? I had both when I done it..

Not long ago I signed up for M208 and canceled it about 2 weeks later as I decided to do another module, I got a full refund. 2 weeks later I got a parcel with all of the materials for the course inside! I rang the OU and they said they don't accept the returned materials so I just kept them some people are ebayin' em for > £100 :O

[Torrent]

Has to be books.
Idk why but I just find it harder to study when looking at a PDF.

[Nitebot]

(Original post by Bleak Lemming)
Not long ago I signed up for M208 and canceled it about 2 weeks later as I decided to do another module, I got a full refund. 2 weeks later I got a parcel with all of the materials for the course inside! I rang the OU and they said they don't accept the returned materials so I just kept them some people are ebayin' em for > £100 :O

I didn't know that. Very odd unless a course is about to close. Talk about easy money...

[APonderingMind]

OMG, I cannot express enough on how much hate I have for pdf files on Kindle. Even free ebooks are of such bad quality! Reading on my kindle really strains my eyes because of the tiny font size. If I try to edit the files to make the font bigger, which is also very time consuming, it doesn't fit perfectly and so I end up with weird sized pages. =-=

I rather carry books around than go through that whole process. And since I often annotate books, its only practical of me to use them instead of pdf files.

[Juno]

(Original post by MC2705)
I adore my Kindle for reading but don't like it for studying. I find it much easier to study using old fashioned paper books, mainly because it is so much easier to flick backwards and forwards.

The worst is studying "online". I hate reading and trying to learn by reading pages and pages of stuff on the laptop/work PC.

I love my Kindle, but I haven't even tried it for uni work as I don't seem to learn and absorb as well as I do with book reading.

(Original post by Nitebot)
The OU is already starting to move to electronic only formats for some courses. I did S155 Scientific Investigations last year. The main text, the Good Experiment Guide, was pdf & kindle only. The only printed material we received was the course guide. It was implied that the OU wants to move more that way. They already give us a pdf version of the S104 text books. I could see a day when only the pdf is offered and students would have to buy a printed copy themselves. Not sure how this will go down with new students paying at a rate of £5000 a year for their courses.

This does not make me happy. I hate even having the assessment stuff (ie TMA questions) online and need to print them off. With that, I also find that some of the essential stuff is hard to find or possibly omitted entirely - I'm studying a new area for my current course, and wanted to know the rules on wordcounts and going over/under. Normally, that's in the front of the TMA booklet, but I couldn't find it anywhere.

[Ice_Queen]

Books without question.

They're a lot easier on the eyes, and it means you can have your document on your PC (whether it be Word, Notepad, OneNote, Inspiration, Powerpoint, Dragon, a different website, whatever) open at the same time.

[Juno]

(Original post by Ice_Queen)
Books without question.

They're a lot easier on the eyes, and it means you can have your document on your PC (whether it be Word, Notepad, OneNote, Inspiration, Powerpoint, Dragon, a different website, whatever) open at the same time.

Oh yeah, that's another thing. With my arthritis I find sitting in the same place uncomfortable for long periods of time, so when essaying I pretty much constantly move around my room. I can take my book with me, and my headset wire (for Dragon) is long enough to go with me too so I can write my essay from wherever I am. But if my books were all on the computer I'd pretty much be stuck!

I do have a Chromebook but my Dragon is only on my desktop. Chromebook can't do Dragon, and I've spent so much time training the desktop version (so it recognises what I say and rarely makes mistakes now; it even learnt "Byrd-Hagel" ) that if I did get a new laptop I'd still be at a disadvantage.